Mumbai municipal polling goes peaceful

The fate of 2412 candidates was sealed in the electronic voting machines in Nagpur, Amravati and Akola municipal corporations in Vidarbha region as nearly 60 per cent of 15.80 lakh electorate exercised their franchise for the local bodies’ elections on Thursday.

The polling, barring a few minor skirmishes and hiccups in the working of electronic voting machines, was mostly peaceful as no major untoward incident was reported from anywhere in these three municipal corporations.

The polling started on a dull note in the morning in Akola and Amravati as there were hardly any queues outside any polling station when the voting began at 7.30 am. In the first two hours, it was between 5 per cent and 10 per cent polling at different polling stations in the city.

By 3.00 pm, the pace of polling improved drastically and most of the stations reported between 40 per cent and 45 per cent polling. Interestingly, there was more enthusiasm for polling among youngsters than older people. There was a polling of around 55 per cent in Akola while it was about 60 in Amravati.

The Municipal commissioner of Nagpur, Lokesh Chandra informed that over 60 per cent voters have exercised their franchise in Nagpur civic body. It was 59.48 per cent in last elections.

Extreme bitterness between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) - the two major partners in the state's Democratic Front government fighting the battle against each other in two out of three civic bodies - has made the elections particularly interesting in the region.

Akola is the lone municipal corporation where both the principal allies of the DF government succeeded to make a pre-poll adjustment while the saffron combine were contesting elections in three bodies by sharing seats. On the other hand, the saffron alliance is intact in all the three civic elections, barring a few "friendly fights". The Congress is ruling in two municipal corporations - Nagpur and Amravati - while the saffron combine was ruling in Akola.